privar

Forms

privar (first-person singular present privo, first-person singular preterite privé, past participle privado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin prīvō (“to set apart; to deprive, rob”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas sees no decisive reason to treat the verb as a learned word in Spanish or the other western Romance languages, as the REW does.^[2] He points out that the participle privado is already in Berceo, and that glossaries render Latin orbus (“bereaved”) by the participle.^[2][5] Popular uses support this: the verb is widely used for “to forbid” instead of the learned prohibir.^[2]

The verb is Portuguese privar, Catalan privar, Occitan privar and Italian privare.^[5][6][7] French priver was borrowed from Latin about 1300.^[8]

The Latin verb is formed from prīvus (“single, one's own”).^[9][1] De Vaan derives this from Proto-Italic *prei-wo- (“separate, individual”), built on the stem seen in prior, with a shift from “being in front” to “being separate”.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is in Calila e Dimna (1251).^[2][3] The CDH has an earlier hit in the Libro de los doce sabios (c. 1237, known from a copy of the late 14th or early 15th century): la dotrina priva a las vezes a la mala naturaleza “teaching sometimes holds back a bad nature”.^[11] In 1490 Alfonso de Palencia glossed Latin cassare as vaziar y privar y castrar “to empty, deprive and castrate”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides “to deprive”, the Diccionario de Autoridades gives “to remove from office”, “to forbid” and “to deprive of the senses”, the last mostly reflexive.^[12] Covarrubias explains the intransitive sense “to be in a lord's favour” through Latin privatus “one's own, particular”: the favourite is called privado, and the favour privanza.^[13] Percyvall in 1591 already glossed it “to be familiar”.^[14] Salvá in 1846 added the senses “to enjoy general favour” and the reflexive “to go without something willingly”.^[15]

In colloquial Spain privar now also means “to delight”, “to be in fashion” and, in slang, “to drink alcohol”.^[4][16][17] The slang sense is old: Salillas recorded it in 1896, and in Salamanca the reflexive meant “to get drunk”.^[18][19] In Central America the reflexive means “to fall fast asleep”, in Venezuela “to lose one's temper”, and in the Dominican Republic the verb means “to boast”.^[20][21]

Timeline

• c. 1237 – the Libro de los doce sabios (in a later copy) has priva “holds back”.^[11]
• 1251 – Calila e Dimna.^[2][3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it as Latin priuo, and privar de cosa amada as orbo.^[22]
• 1546 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[23]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “to deprive, to take away, to be familiar”.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the sense “to be in favour”.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines four transitive senses.^[12]
• 1846 – Salvá adds “to enjoy general favour” and the reflexive “to go without”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin privare.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deprive someone of something they had: Lo privaron de la libertad.^[4][1]
2. To remove someone from a post, office or dignity.^[4]
3. To forbid, deny something to someone.^[4][1]
4. To knock senseless;^[16] (reflexive) to faint, lose consciousness.^[4][16]
5. (intransitive, colloquial) To delight, please greatly: Me privan las fresas.^[4][1]
6. (intransitive) To enjoy a ruler's favour (privanza).^[4]
7. (intransitive) Of a person or thing: to be widely accepted, be in fashion.^[4][1]
8. (intransitive, slang) To drink alcohol.^[4]
9. (reflexive) To go without something pleasant or useful of one's own will.^[4][1]
10. (reflexive, Costa Rica, El Salvador) To fall fast asleep.^[4][20]

Word family

• privación
• privado
• privanza
• privativo

Related words

• privilegio
• Latin privus
• French priver

Usage notes

Old Spanish had an adverb privado “quickly, at once”, frequent from the Cid to the 14th century, with a variant priado.^[2] Its origin is disputed: Meyer-Lübke derived it from Old Occitan abrivat “swift, impetuous”, which Corominas finds defensible if it was later associated with privado “private”, but he leaves the question in strong doubt.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 655
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. privar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. privar
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6758
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2713
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 6, 820
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. priver
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. prīuō
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. privar
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 385
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1230
14. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 194
15. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 883
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. privar
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. privar
18. ^ Salillas, Rafael (1896), El delincuente español: el lenguaje, Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, p. 334
19. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 587
20. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. privar
21. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. privar
22. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. privar
23. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. privar
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 866